Yora watches and reviews The Expanse

[Rakaydos]

"where am I"

"You're flying this rock, and we need to stop."

"THE GREAT WORK MUST CONTINUE."

"Ok, right, great work, but does it have to be earth? Lets head to venus, it's in the right direction."

Julie is definately there, but there is also the alien goo with override control. Julie is a pilot, so her personality got to pilot, but the goo is the one setting the objectives.

[factotum]

I do wonder if this stuff about brain bleeds under high G is actually what happens? I know that fighter pilots can get "red out" if they suffer significant negative Gs because the blood goes to their head and busts blood vessels in their eyes, but if you're lying flat on an chair (so the blood isn't tending to either extremity) I'm not sure what would actually cause the blood vessels in the brain to be particularly badly affected.

Oh, and yes, as I said earlier, they occasionally forget about minor details like signal delay when it's inconvenient for the plot...

[Rakaydos]

I do wonder if this stuff about brain bleeds under high G is actually what happens? I know that fighter pilots can get "red out" if they suffer significant negative Gs because the blood goes to their head and busts blood vessels in their eyes, but if you're lying flat on an chair (so the blood isn't tending to either extremity) I'm not sure what would actually cause the blood vessels in the brain to be particularly badly affected.

Oh, and yes, as I said earlier, they occasionally forget about minor details like signal delay when it's inconvenient for the plot...

It's the blood vessels in the back of the brain that would be most likely to burst, while the forebrain is starved of oxygen. The brain tissue itself would compress inside the skull.

[Yora]

Oh, and yes, as I said earlier, they occasionally forget about minor details like signal delay when it's inconvenient for the plot...

I've been thinking that too at some occasion. But unless I am mistaken, we never actually get anyone trying to reply to these messages. And usually you see the video progress bar at the bottom of the screen, indicating that it's a recording.
That call to the moon is the only one were I recall people having a conversation.

[factotum]

The most egregious examples would be spoilers--suffice to say you get situations where people on Earth are responding immediately to events happening in the outer Solar System. This is obviously done for the sake of drama, but it's annoying when it happens nonetheless.

[Eldan]

I think this is about the point in the series where I stopped watching last time. Climax of Book 1. I might continue now.

[Yora]

S2E6: Paradigm Shift

Starting with another flashback generations ago when Mars was still a smaller UN colony and had two moons. A guy test out a new high power space ship drive.

Then back to the Security Council in the present, where the people are discussing the possibility that the Martians secretly installed a new experimental engine on Eros. Earth also just lost half of its missile arsenal, so Mars looks like it has now military superiority over Earth. And none of the other factions want to talk with them.
They already send a ship to Venus to see what happened when Eros impacted (since it's hard to look through the clouds from far away) and it should arrive there in about a week.

Holden sends a message to his mother that he is fine and doing something important. He's also feeling very worried about what the blue stuff did with Eros and wants to destroy the sample they hid, though Naomi still is not sure about it. But she thinks he should be the captain and this decision up to him.
To not have it cause needless strain on everyone, Holden and Naomi tell Alex and Amos about their little personal secret. Which they find very funny because they already figured that out and where only betting about when they got together. Amos won and Alex is going to let him punch him, but Amos instead sticks a finger in his ear.
Alex has some worrying news for Holden, though, as he discovered that 30 of the missiles from Earth did not self destruct but kept going until they disappeared from the radar. And we see someone scooping them up with a big net.

The inventor was surprised by the power of his engine and can't lift his hand to shut it down. And since he never figured out how to set the voice commands from Chinese to English he disabled that system. Also the fuel efficiency is so high that his heart will give out before the fuel gauge will.

An acquaintance of Chrisjen is already suspecting that the biohazard incident and the new engine on Eros were really the same thing and quite possibly of extraterrestrial origin. So he wants to get a seat on the ship to Venus to see what's left of Eros himself.

The Rocinante gets back to Tycho Station and the people greet them as heroes. Holden and Naomi go to tell Johnson about the missing missiles and Johnson can barely hide his big grin. He wants to keep hold on them since they might come handy in the future.

Alex gets surrounded by new fans and some big miner gets angry about his girlfriend and is looking for a fight. Amos comes to help and almost kills that guy.

Johnson comes to Holden because he thinks he's hiding something from him. In particular why they took a break of five hours when they returned to Tycho Station after escaping from Eros. Holden says they made a stop to work out what to do about Amos killing Miller's friend, and that's all he has to tell Johnson about it.

The captured scientist is still working on analysing the signal that was recorded from Eros.

Naomi goes to Johnson to suggest adding Julie Mao to Miller's hero story to give it more emphasis on Earthers and Belters working together to safe humanity and caring for the Belt.

Holden talks with the others and thinks that they should get the hidden sample of blue stuff and destroy it before Johnson gets his hands on it. Alex suggest that they could give it to the Martians who are the only ones who aren't connected to that mess. Amos points out that they don't know that, since the Martians also had scientists on Phoebe. Holden thinks that as long as the stuff is around, someone will be trying to control it to gain power. And right now their sample is the only one known to still exist. Everything else seems to have been destroyed with Phoebe, the Anubis, and Eros.
So Naomi sends a signal to the missile they stored it in to fly into the sun. But it looks like she faked it and it's still where it was parked.

The Martian marines team is patroling the border of the Martian territory claim on Ganymede, with UN soldiers being in sight on their side of the border.

Chrisjen has a talk with Erinwright about Mao, who was clearly involved in some way with Eros. She suggest offering Mao a deal to let him stay free and keep much of his wealth if he's telling them what actually happened. Erinwright thinks he can get into contact with one of Mao's children to deliver the message. Chrisjen wants him to also include that if Mao doesn't cooperate, she will see that their whole business empire gets seized and make all of them wanted people. And there seems to be an implication that the same warning goes for Erinwright as well.

Alex sees Amos going around the Rocinante updating the Martian flags on the doors by painting Deimos over. Alex thinks that's not funny but Amos thinks it's hilarious. He also thinks Alex is upset because he made him look weak when he beat up that miner in the bar, and that Alex shouldn't feel bad about this. In his category of people to kill, people to follow, and people to protect, Alex is one of those to protect. That's just how it is. Alex tells him that he let 25 people get blown up because he was trying to safe Amos, which is something Amos just can't understand.

Naomi helps Johnson's lieutenant Drummer to disable the security on the UN missiles they captured. Drummer is surprised, but glad to accept her help.

The marines on Mars are informed that their ship is going over the horizon for the next hour, and will be unable to give them assistance. A drone arrives right after that to take a look at them and four UN marines appear in the distance. Sergeant Draper reports to the ship but their comms are getting jammed. Overhead in the sky, ships start shooting at each other and completely shredding the orbital stations.
The marines get all killed, except for Draper who survives with some injuries and sees a blue stuff zombie leaning over her. If I didn't know she would never have seen the blue stuff absorbing people, I would assume this really is another hallucination that means nothing when the next episode starts.

--

I love when people are making hidden threats on this show. There was Johnson telling Drummer that they are the only ones who will know about his communication with Chrisjen, but I think there were more of that.
I think this time Chrisjen makes it quite clear to her boss Erinwright that he has had his turn and messed it up, and while they still have their old position, she's now the one in charge and his continued career, and possibly freedom, depends on her goodwill.

Holden telling Johnson that some missiles have disappeared and might fall into the wrong hands was great. You can see the actor having so much fun. The cat that ate the canary.

Since we first met the Martian marine, I felt pretty certain that she would become a prisoner or lone survivor, and circumstances will force her to cooperate with Holden's crew to save Mars, which eventually will make her come around and stop seeing Earthers as natural enemies.

I liked the fighting at the ending. Some of my favorite episodes on Babylon 5 were about people suddenly hearing about battles taking place when there had only been dangerous simmering antagonism but absolutely no warning that full out violence would start right now. This is exactly the same type of scene, but shown from the perspective of the soldiers involved in the fighting instead of seeing the result on the news.

Naomi seems to be making a new friend on Tycho Station, which I think might become a problem because Holden and Johnson appear to have reached the end of their partnership. And both Naomi and Drummer seem to be extremely loyal to their men. Most of the scenes with Drummer don't seem to be contributing much to the overall narrative, so I suspect this is all a setup for something that will pay off later.

On the downside, hearing the dying monolog of an inventor from 130 years ago did nothing for me. Which at this point should not come as a surprise for anyone.
I am still amazed how this episodes manage to stay gripping the whole time and things seem to be happening at a really fast pace, while at the same time most episodes seem to have very little actually happening. The overall impression is what matters the most, but I still have the feeling that it could have been even better with tighter writing.

That monster at the end absolutely looks like a husk from Mass Effect. Don't know how they are described in the books, but the first book came out four years after the game. So yeah...

[Rakaydos]

S2E6: Paradigm Shift
That monster at the end absolutely looks like a husk from Mass Effect. Don't know how they are described in the books, but the first book came out four years after the game. So yeah...

Yea, I know I had to censor myself back in season 1 when you predicted husks on Eros. I mean, you were wrong then, but...

Also, there was a girl in the dome waving to the martian marines, too. She starts being important soon.

[factotum]

The flashback is of Solomon Epstein discovering the drive that bears his name. To be honest, I don't know why they bothered with all that stuff about how he couldn't get a signal through to his wife, because what would she have been able to do anyway? As soon as he activated that drive his ship became the fastest thing in the system, there wasn't anything that was likely to catch it.

Mind you, this is one area where the Expanse's scientific rigour definitely falls down. I've mentioned before that the Epstein drive is just unbelievably powerful, but this whole scene of it being discovered raises more questions. Such as, why did whoever built that yacht he was in make it capable of surviving 10+ gees of acceleration when it obviously couldn't get anywhere near that before he uprated the drive? (Since, if it *was* capable of 10g acceleration before, him activating the drive with no easy way to turn it off again makes him an idiot). Why on earth was the drive itself capable of containing that much power? What should really have happened there is that Epstein's ship ought to have been spread over half the system by the explosion, but then no-one would have had any reason to assume that his tweaks were good and wouldn't have built new versions of the drive...

Incidentally, the fuel display on Epstein's ship goes from 89.9% to 89.7% as the mission clock covers 1 hour, and he's accelerating at 10g or more, which would mean his ship would be travelling around a third the speed of light when the fuel ran out (depending how much faster it got as the fuel load depleted, of course).

[Rakaydos]

Mind you, this is one area where the Expanse's scientific rigour definitely falls down. I've mentioned before that the Epstein drive is just unbelievably powerful, but this whole scene of it being discovered raises more questions. Such as, why did whoever built that yacht he was in make it capable of surviving 10+ gees of acceleration when it obviously couldn't get anywhere near that before he uprated the drive? (Since, if it *was* capable of 10g acceleration before, him activating the drive with no easy way to turn it off again makes him an idiot). Why on earth was the drive itself capable of containing that much power?

As a noprize type explanation, you can get away with a lot by starting with the assumption that the drive was built on earth and had to lift itself to orbit- that's an easy 4-5g right off the bat, just to get someplace it can be refueled and sent to mars. If the tinkerings also magically improved the drive's ability to distribte force to the ship structure, that could puss the numbers way up.

[Yora]

"Sci-fi writers should never touch numbers."

It certainly is possible to put plausible numbers in sci-fi stories, but I never heard of any cases where that actually happened. Basically every time you see numbers in sci-fi, they make no sense.

[factotum]

As a noprize type explanation, you can get away with a lot by starting with the assumption that the drive was built on earth and had to lift itself to orbit- that's an easy 4-5g right off the bat, just to get someplace it can be refueled and sent to mars.

It's not actually *necessary* to use 4-5g to get to orbit. Even our clunky chemical rockets usually only go to 3g, and if you had a reasonably efficient fusion drive (which is what they had before Epstein, it just wasn't silly numbers powerful or efficient) you could quite easily achieve orbit while never going above 2g--the main reason for using more than that is because, the longer it takes to reach orbit, the more fuel you use, and chemical rockets aren't terribly efficient.

Even if it *was* the case that this yacht was built on Earth with a far greater power than was actually required to get it into orbit, though, you're still talking about doubling its power without any issues--and don't forget that the massive increase in efficiency Epstein created means the drive is going to be running continuously for a couple of weeks, which is far longer than it was presumably designed for.

[Eldan]

I don't know, I've read some good hard SciFi that seemed at least plausible at first glance.

[Rakaydos]

It's not actually *necessary* to use 4-5g to get to orbit. Even our clunky chemical rockets usually only go to 3g, and if you had a reasonably efficient fusion drive (which is what they had before Epstein, it just wasn't silly numbers powerful or efficient) you could quite easily achieve orbit while never going above 2g--the main reason for using more than that is because, the longer it takes to reach orbit, the more fuel you use, and chemical rockets aren't terribly efficient.

Even if it *was* the case that this yacht was built on Earth with a far greater power than was actually required to get it into orbit, though, you're still talking about doubling its power without any issues--and don't forget that the massive increase in efficiency Epstein created means the drive is going to be running continuously for a couple of weeks, which is far longer than it was presumably designed for.

Can doesn't mean should. I'll try and hold back my inner rocket nerd here, but there's a most efficient acceleration curve to get to orbit, based on balancing atmospheric drag, which gets worse the faster you accelerate, and " gravity drag "that gets worse the longer you aren't in orbit. Typically with our chemical rockets that tops out around greater than 4 to 5 g,which is a bit uncomfortable for astronauts, so crewed missions throttle back a bit.

And if pre-Epstein fusion was efficient enough to make single stage to orbit plausible, The top end will be even more extreme, as it has to lift the fuel for the entire trip to orbit off the ground at a reasonable rate, then burns off almost all the fuel and puts all that power into just the ship.

[Yora]

Getting into space is about speed, not acceleration. As long as atmospheric drag does not make you actually slow down, you can accelerate as gradually and gently as you want to, The main reason to do it faster is that eventually your fuel will run out, and when the fuel has considerable weight, you want to convert it from weight into speed as early as possible to reduce your overall fuel requirement.
If your fuel becomes so light its weight starts to get negligible, the whole situation for space launches changes completely.

[Rakaydos]

Getting into space is about speed, not acceleration. As long as atmospheric drag does not make you actually slow down, you can accelerate as gradually and gently as you want to, The main reason to do it faster is that eventually your fuel will run out, and when the fuel has considerable weight, you want to convert it from weight into speed as early as possible to reduce your overall fuel requirement.
If your fuel becomes so light its weight starts to get negligible, the whole situation for space launches changes completely.

But it didnt become negligible for fusion drives until Epstine's little modification.

As for accelerating "as gently as you want", good luck getting off the surface of earth with an ion drive- you are missing the concept of "gravity drag" where every second it takes to reach orbital speed, is an extra 9.8 m/s of DV you need to fight gravity.

[factotum]

But it didnt become negligible for fusion drives until Epstine's little modification.

Do we actually know that? I don't think it ever says just how good fusion drives were before. You would certainly hope that even pre-Epstein fusion drives would have considerably higher specific impulse than a chemical rocket--heck, even the proposed fission-based nuclear rockets they looked at would have got 3 or 4 times as much specific impulse as the Space Shuttle main engines, which translates into a massive reduction in fuel requirements to achieve orbit.

[Rakaydos]

Do we actually know that? I don't think it ever says just how good fusion drives were before. You would certainly hope that even pre-Epstein fusion drives would have considerably higher specific impulse than a chemical rocket--heck, even the proposed fission-based nuclear rockets they looked at would have got 3 or 4 times as much specific impulse as the Space Shuttle main engines, which translates into a massive reduction in fuel requirements to achieve orbit.

A fusion drive may have good specific impulse, but it's TWR is normally abysmal in comparison to a simple chemical engine, resulting in heavy gravity drag losses. And if the fusion drive is efficent enough for SSTO, SSTO will be the normal design.

[factotum]

A fusion drive may have good specific impulse, but it's TWR is normally abysmal in comparison to a simple chemical engine, resulting in heavy gravity drag losses. And if the fusion drive is efficent enough for SSTO, SSTO will be the normal design.

Fission or fusion? Nobody has ever built a fusion drive or, AFAIK, have any solid idea how one would work, so not sure how you can proclaim their TWR is abysmal. The fission-based nuclear thermal engines I mentioned, yes, I will agree they have poor thrust, but I only raised them as an example of how drives can be much better than chemical rockets.

Let's put it another way: if the complicated and expensive fusion drive on Epstein's yacht only had the same specific impulse as a chemical rocket, nobody would bother building one, because chemical rockets are cheap and easy to build (relatively speaking). The drive has to have some advantage over chemical rockets or they wouldn't be used.

[Rakaydos]

Fission or fusion? Nobody has ever built a fusion drive or, AFAIK, have any solid idea how one would work, so not sure how you can proclaim their TWR is abysmal. The fission-based nuclear thermal engines I mentioned, yes, I will agree they have poor thrust, but I only raised them as an example of how drives can be much better than chemical rockets.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q...=1&oi=scholart

The general idea seems to be the same as a Tokemak, with plasma fusion allowed to leak at high speed through a magnetic nozzle, in order to keep the incredibly hot exaust from melting the systems. We dont have it because we dont even have a normal tokemak yet, but all the theorys are sound. (or at least flexible enough to cover all expected results)
But even with modern superconductors, like the SPARC reactor, you're still looking at a "combustion chamber" of multiple tens of tons, and while it very efficently uses it's hydrogen fuel, it's not going to be outputting almost two hundred times it's weight as thrust, like a SpaceX Merlin engine.

Let's put it another way: if the complicated and expensive fusion drive on Epstein's yacht only had the same specific impulse as a chemical rocket, nobody would bother building one, because chemical rockets are cheap and easy to build (relatively speaking). The drive has to have some advantage over chemical rockets or they wouldn't be used.

When did I say it would lack specific impulse? ISP is FUEL EFFICENCY, TWR is horsepower. Even a non Epsistine fusion dive would be efficent- but the magnets to contain the plasma, and the systems to recover the energy of fusion in order to power those magnets, are heavy.

[Yora]

S2E7: The Seventh Man

Snowflakes of blood are falling down on Ganymede. (I don't think it would form crystals like water with all the other stuff floating in it.) Our tough lady sergeant Draper is found by other Martian marines. No signs of the blue space zombie, as I predicted.

Earth gets news of the fighting that has seriously disrupted food supplies in the outer system, and Erinwright suggest that they need to retaliate against a Martian base immediately. The General Secretary turns to Chrisjen straight away to hear her ideas, who recommends having peace meetings with the Martians. This situation with Mars is worse than anything they ever had and they really need to get things settled down. The GS wonders why Chrisjen never ran for an elected office herself, and she replies that she likes getting work done and not having to stick out her neck. Erinwright notices that his input is not really in demand anymore.

Dawes comes from Ceres to Tycho station to deliver aid (to who exactly?) and is very popular for it. Holden and crew are handing out supplies to the people. One woman drops something Amos gave her and another woman tries to grab it, so he pushes her away. Her young son comes running and pushes Amos away from his mother, which is something that Amos doesn't really know how to process.

Sergeant Draper gets treated on a Martian ship and is told that her whole team was killed. Their lieutenant on the ship is also dead, so the commander needs to know everything she can tell him about the battle. But she's currently in no condition to make her report.

Amos goes to talk with the captured scientist Cortezar again to ask about what was done to his brain. He says at first the effect was temporary, but all in the team decided to keep doing the procedure since they liked the calm state of mind it brought them. Amos tells him he scared a kid who thought he was threatening his mother, and it reminded him of his own childhood. Cortezar tells him his problem is that he's trying to hang on to the emotions he has left and things will be much easier when he gets rid of those too. It's a transformation like the one from the protomolecule, and he tries to get Amos interested in it.

Johnson calls together a meeting of OPA leaders to tell them with Earth and Mars fighting each other, this is the time for them to establish themselves as a real political power. They just saved Earth from destruction and now they have strategic weapons to be a real military threat. He thinks they need to really unite and select an official representative to do negotiations with the other powers. Immediately people suspect that Johnson wants that position, but he agrees it needs to go to a native Belter and recommends Dawes. Who has a lot of support among the other leaders and gets no real challenges.
But Dawes immediately starts promoting a much more aggressive approach to secure Belter independence, which both Johnson and Drummer find worrying. Holden feels he needs to step in and tell everyone that neither the UN nor the MCR were behind the deaths on Eros, and that the strategic missiles have given Earth and Mars nothing but trouble and they should not follow that example. Dawes tries to stay somewhat diplomatic, but thinks that as Earthers, Johnson and Holden don't really understand the true desperation of the Belters.
After the meeting, Naomi is not happy about Holden speaking up. Two Earthers telling the Belters how they should set up their strategy is a really bad signal.

Draper is out of bed (but still looking like hell) and has another interview with the commander. He takes one of the interrogation pills that Lopez used, which does appear to bother her. She has a hard time remembering what exactly happened, but she's certain that they were being attacked first.

Dawes comes visiting Holden and Naomi on the Rocinante. He thinks they are hiding something that could help the Belter but they are keeping for themselves, and that Johnson knows about it but isn't talking either. He lets them know that Johnson won't be accepted as a leader for the OPA and they won't let him keep control of the missiles.
Holden reminds Naomi that this situation is getting hairy and they need to be absolutely certain about each other's loyalty in this.

Draper walks around the ship that has people repairing battle damage all over the place. When she goes to be equipment room of her team, the ship's captain comes to look for her. He asks if something about the report she made is bothering her, and she says she absolutely certain that there was a drone flying overhead just before the fighting started, but all the sensor logs say there wasn't one in the area.

Dawes goes to Drummer to ask her to come back to Ceres and work for him again. But he really would like her to tell him about Johnson's secret ace in the hole. And she appears to be willing to talk.

Draper gets questioned again and this time she gets one of the focus pills. She remembers six UN soldiers running towards them with a seventh following behind them. She realize they were not shooting at the Martians but at the man following them. They got ready for battle and that was when she saw the drone above them. She tells them the seventh man was not wearing a suit, but not that he looked like a glowing blue zombie.

Johnson tells Holden that Cortezar says he's still getting new signals from the protomolecule, which implies not all of it has been destroyed.

Dawes then goes to see Miller's young friend Diego to ask him about the assault they did on the abandoned space station. Diego tells him that they were capturing scientists, but then remembers that he's giving away Johnson's secrets. But of course a kid like him has no chance to resist some nice words from someone like Dawes.

Drapper gets a medal for having been wounded in combat (such a weird American tradition) and also told that she will make a statement at the peace meeting that her team opened fire in the confusing situation on the border on Ganymede. She says that's not what happened and the commander tells her he doesn't care.

Holden sneaks out of his bed in the middle of the night. He picks up a gun and goes to Cortezar cell, but finds nobody there and the place in chaos. He calls Johnson that someone took him, who immediately knows it was Dawes. Drummer tries to stop his ship from leaving but the technician at the console says there's something wrong with the computer, and the ship gets away. Holden calls Alex and Naomi to take of immediately and go after the ship. (Dawes is smart, is this a decoy?) Alex feels certain he can disable it and hits it right in the engine.
Alex wants to board them immediately, but the only on on the ship is Diego.

--

Amos and Sergeant Draper are the stars of the episode. Amos in particular stands out because we see him in a state of significant discomfort. Usually he punches everyone to the floor who tries fighting with him without a second thought, but a child defending someone else is exactly the things that he is protective about. He doesn't have any established pattern to act in this situation and so he just turns around at leaves.

He then goes straight to Cortezar to talk with him about his experience with having his empathy suppressed, who praises it as something fantastic that makes you get rid of worries and creates a peace of mind that way. And Amos is only bothered about it because he has not yet completely overcome his concern about other people.
I think Amos might actually have much more empathy than everyone thinks. His problem might be more with his ability to express his emotions.

He also really isn't a dumb brute. When he had figured out how Cortezar's mind works in the previous episode, he broke off the conversation while he had him talking to get Holden. When Holden went to Cortezar to question him using Amos' strategy, he wasn't actually using it very well. But Amos stood at the side the whole time, interjecting with just the right words every time Holden started getting antagonistic and Cortezar getting upset. Holden was doing the talking, but even then Amos was still directing the interrogation. I think he was having a very good read on both Holden's and Cortezar's emotions in that scene and constantly monitoring it closely. And that time Miller hesitated to sit down next to him and he moved away his tools that he had left lying there earlier, shows that he has a decent ability to sense unspoken tensions and make gestures about recognizing another person's perspective. Miller could have moved the tools himself if they had been in his way, but Amos decided to clear a space for him at the table next to him.
There are times when he seems to be genuinely enjoying himself, and I think the things he finds funny tend to be a bit more "complex", for lack of a better term. There's the time he vandalized the Martian flag on the airlock, when he mad a bet with Alex about Holden and Naomi and then pretended to punch him in the arm, or he made the "bombs away" comment. You have to put a bit of thought into these to see why there is something humorous about them, and they are related to other people's emotions.

What I think is new in the past two episodes is that Amos seems to be showing more initiative and does things from start to finish without including Naomi or Holden in it. He has an idea and gives it a try, and shares it only after it was successful. He learns that there are other people similar to him, and does his own investigations. Pursuing a goal that he wants. It also seems like it's something that he knows Naomi and Holden can't understand and won't be able to give any useful advice for.
But Cortezar shares a similar condition and is someone he can have a meaningful discussion about it with. I really liked that scene, as it is something I think you almost never see in shows like this. It's two people with a condition that impairs their interactions with the rest of society who are discussing their situation on their own terms from their own perspective and both trying to give each other support. They don't rely on any help from people from the rest of society who have their own theories as outside observers to develop ways to deal with their condition. To borrow a term here, this is "empowerment". Now in this particular case they are both highly intelligent men who are both fully capable to manage their life and wellbeing by themselves. Which isn't the case with a wide range of mental impairments so it's not a universal solution, but it's always nice to see when stories give such characters this kind of agency.
There was also a short scene in S2E3: Static in which a doctor describes the examination of the prisoners to Johnson, Holden, and Amos. It's a pretty short scene with little interactions, but I got a very strong impression that the doctor is aware of Amos displaying a similar condition. Psychologist and neurologists are usually pretty good at picking up the cues quickly and she was just examining several such cases. I think she knows Amos' question is about a possible treatment for himself and not the prisoners and she replies to him with the same seriousness as she's talking with the other men. I also really liked that, as that's not how you usually see these thing on TV or movies.

I feel Bobby Draper also is not quite of a balanced mind, even before the attack. But I think with here there is not as much to work with beyond fanaticism. I'm never quite sure how much of her stiffness is deliberate or a limitation of the actor, but the end result is a performance that I think works really quite well for the character so far. It always feels a little bit like she's not quite there, with her eyes not really looking at anything most of the time. She stares angrily, but it feels a bit like she's not actually seeing anything. And the way she talks is like she is reciting something but not really interacting with other people. She stands a bit too straight and her voice is a bit too loud. Which does create a slight impression of insecurity. She is performing her hard-ass elite soldier appearance for others, while at the same time not showing what is going on internally other than anger.
Curious where this will be going, as I am pretty sure that she's now at the start of a transformation to gain new perspectives, as I predict about 3 minutes after her first appearance. I think for all of this episode, she doesn't have her hair up as she usually does, which is already a more "natural" appearance instead of the more formal and disciplined one from earlier.

Great to see Dawes again, but I think neither he nor Johnson were as impressive in this episode as they were previously. That OPA meeting about selecting a leader to represent them just didn't feel quite right and like it's going on for too long.

[factotum]

Not really much to say about this episode, it's really everyone in a holding pattern while they get into position for the next arc. The way the storylines fit the series is a bit odd in the Expanse--we just had the Eros incident, which essentially took up the last bit of season 1 and the first bit of season 2, and the next arc lasts into the middle of season 3. This would be a really annoying series to be watching if they cancelled it, because it would guarantee dangling plot threads!

[Rakaydos]

There's something of a continuity error in this episode. for those who've read the books, or watched season 4, pay careful attention to the names of the belter groups present when Anderson Dawes becomes Speaker of the Belt. And Naomi doesnt react.

[Yora]

S2E8: Pyre

We start with another flashback (groan) of a greenhouse on Ganymede being destroyed in the battle with sad civilians getting killed for sappiness.

The man actually survived and immediately checks his bottle when he wakes up and there's some blue light inside. There is actually a full refugee ship and he goes looking for his daughter. Everyone looks like they are in the first phase of transformation.

Johnson and Holden want to question Diego, which the Belters don't like.
Drummer tells them that Dawes escaped with the prisoner on a small ship just after the Rocinante had left the dock. It didn't have permission to leave, but someone on Tycho Station released the clamps manually. Holden wants to know who's in charge of this messy security, which would be her. He tells her right away that she either does a terribly job or doesn't have the loyalty of her men. (He doesn't tell her that she also could have helped Dawes with that.)
Dawes calls the station and Drummer wants to send it over to Johnson's office, but he has her play it on the main screen in the control room. Dawes tells him that he lied to the OPA about destroying all information about the project on Eros, and secretly keeping one of the scientists and having him continue his work is a betrayal of the Belters.

Namoi isn't happy to hear that Cortezar picked up another signal from the blue stuff after Eros was destroyed and Holden never told her about it. She thinks she might be able to figure out where that signal had come from. Drummer says if there's anything in the computer they would have found it, but they could go outside to the antenna and check the backup logs. (Which sounds like a murder attempt.)
Naomi goes to the Rocinante to check on the rocket with the sample that she did not actually send into the sun. Holden comes in to apologize that he didn't tell her about the signal, but she says she has work to do.

Alex finds Amos wandering around the station looking pretty messy. He asks if Amos can help him with some repair work and Amos just tells him no and walks off. Which surprises Alex.

One of Johnsons command center technicans shows the message from Dawes to other OPA people.

The ship carrying refugees has all Earthers and Martians get up and get transferred to another ship. Belters can't go with them and have to get on other transports to get there if they want to. But the captain is really just throwing them out into space. So sappy...

While Naomi and Drummer are checking the antennas, Drummer brings the conversation to why Naomi isn't trusting Johnson. She thinks Johnson is right with what is best for the belt and that she doesn't have any love for Dawes. (Didn't expect that.) When they get the data, Naomi calls Johnson that the blue stuff is on Ganymede.

Holden thinks they need to do something about Ganymede, but with Mars being in control there, there's nothing Johnson can do.
Holden an Naomi check the personell files for Ganymede to search for everyone who was employed by the Protegen company at some point and who was present during the fighting. They limit it further down to people with advanced biocemistry degrees and get one man who has three. But he was listed as being the paediatrician for the hospital. Holden checks for other people the man had contact with, one of them just arrived on Tycho as a refugee. (His young daughter is presumed dead, having been at the hospital when it was destroyed. I sense foreshadowing.)

The command center technician who was snitching is getting ready for other OPA people to come and take control. Drummer shots a few but Johnson tells her to surrender.

Holden and Naomi get their man and are not too friendly for him. He tells them the man they are interested in was his daughters doctor and sometimes helped him with his botany research. Naomi gets out the container from his pocket and slowly opens it in a dramatic fashion, but despite the blue light coming from it earlier, it's just a modified soy plant. (Show, I am disappoint.)

The OPA people tell Johnson to give them the codes for the nuclear missiles, but he won't tell them even as they start shooting other captives. The leader thinks Drummer has the codes as well, but she also refuses. He shots her too, but tells her he will let her be taken the hospital if they give him the codes before she dies.

Amos is looking for a woman he left behind on Earth but doesn't want other to know. Alex wants to know why he isn't helping with the refugees anymore and just hanging around on the Rocinante, and Amos says he just doesn't feel like it. If helping people is so important to Alex, then why does he not go to Mars to help his family? Alex gets really pissed at this and tries to punch Amos, which obviously goes really bad. But Amos gets a hold of himself before seriously hurting Alex and tells him that he doesn't want to fight him, and asks that he doesn't make him to. Because if he kills Alex, they don't have anyone to fly the ship. And that's the comment that Alex finds really disturbing. But Amos actually looks the most upset he's ever been yet.
An alarm goes off and they discover that Naomi had the computer monitor the hangar where the nuclear missiles are kept, and that someone was trying to access it. Amos immediately rushes off. (I sense a Big Damn Heroes moment coming up.)

Alex tries to call Holden, but he mutes his phone because he's talking with the refugee. Holden and Naomi suspect that Doctor Strickland was doing experiments with the blue stuff in the hospital. (So perhaps someone was shooting down the orbital mirror deliberately to hit the hospital?) Since corporate hospitals have to enable parents to check remotely on their unattended children, Naomi asks the man to do a check, and it shows that Strickland took her out of the hospital an hour before the fighting. Holden thinks Strickland knew the hospital would be destroyed and took the girl with him. With given his suspected field of study might even be worse. The man figures out they are going to Ganymede and wants to go with them. Alex calls again and tells Holden about the missiles.

Amos gets in his suit and goes walking outside the station. Because of the spin, he's now hanging from his boots, and the strength of the magnets doesn't look trustworthy. But he does manage to cut off the oxygen for the command center. When they notice something is wrong, everyone already starts passing out, and Johnson manages to disarm the gang leader before he can shot them.
Holden and Alex arrive with security and take control of the situation. Alex helps Drummer up to get her to the hospital, but she has no need for his help to walk. She does have need for his pistol to shot the leader and the traitor before she leaves, though.

Amos shows the new guy to his quarters and tells him that he's not free to walk around the ship by himself. He asks if he's really coming with them to find is daughter, and that he thinks that's a good reason.

Naomi asks Holden why he found Cortezar missing in the middle of the night and he admits that he went there to kill him. She tells him that he shouldn't become someone who would do such things. He tells her he won't be keeping any more secrets from her.

--

Amos is great. Such a fantastic performance. I am feeling more certain that his condition really isn't about a lack of empathy, but instead there's an issue with impulse control.
He really seems very upset when he gets in a fight with Alex. He pleads with Alex to not start fights with him like that because he understands that he does not have full control over his actions. When he says "please don't make me do it", he actually means it literally and not as an excuse to shift the blame. When he tries to explain why he does not want to kill Alex, it seems like his reason that they still need him to fly the ship is the only thing that he can think of at that moment that makes sense to his way of thinking. It's really because he likes Alex, but doesn't know how to make sense of that rationally.
I've seen other comments about the episode after watching it and writing the summary, and several people commented that he seems to be following Cortezar's advice to get rid of his remaining emotions. But I really don't see it. When Alex finds him wandering around on the street on Tycho Station outside the bar, which is next to a brothel, it might partially be because the street set is really small, but I think it's more about Amos having been out all night drinking and whoring. That would not be someone who tries to suppress emotions, but someone who is seeking them out. When Alex later finds him on the Rocinante and asks why he doesn't help dealing with the refugees, he just says he doesn't feel like it. Alex takes it as Amos saying that he doesn't care, but I think it's more that Amos is actively avoiding going back because it makes him uncomfortable after being pushed by the child.
There certainly is a lot going on. Unfortunately, we don't get to see Amos storming the command center.

I've been thinking it from the start, but Drummer is cool. And now elevated to super-cool.
I actually thought she had turned away from Johnson and was working for Dawes now, being perfectly capable of arranging all the circumstances that allowed him to free Cortezar and escape from Tycho. But even worse was the scene where Dawes was talking with her personally about coming back with him to Ceres, which ended with them being on very good terms. But now this episode tells us that she really despises him and is super loyal to Johnson. That's not just a fake-out, that was the last episode actually lying to us to set up false accusation. It got us a nice conversation between two of the coolest characters on the show, but its still terrible writing. Deliberately leaving out important information is bad enough. Actively lying is as terrible as it gets.

And then there's the refugees from Ganymede. The botanist seems like a nice guy, but the whole way his story is being presented so far is a masterclass in the over-dramatic sappy American storytelling that I praised the first season for avoiding it. Steven Spielberg would approve.
And that fake-out with the blow glowing soy plant was another blatant lie. We have already established that blue-white glow is the blue stuff and there actually is no light coming from the plant. Putting the light there in the first place is amazingly awful storytelling.

Good scenes with some of my favorite characters, but also a lot of really bad storytelling right now.

[Yora]

There's something of a continuity error in this episode. for those who've read the books, or watched season 4, pay careful attention to the names of the belter groups present when Anderson Dawes becomes Speaker of the Belt. And Naomi doesnt react.

Why do you keep posting these thing? I already told you to not talk about information that will be revealed and important later. Twice, I think.

[factotum]

Yeah, I really didn't like this whole bit with the orbital mirrors. Because, they're in orbit--presumably a geosynchronous orbit of Ganymede, so they can illuminate the same part of the surface at all times. Which means, even if you blow them to pieces, the wreckage stays in orbit--it does *not* come crashing down onto the station and smash everything up! Maybe the book explains better how that happened (not read it, wouldn't know), but the TV show just sort of presents it to you and hope you're not familiar enough with orbital mechanics to notice.

As for Amos, I think lack of empathy is definitely a part of things with him--he shows on plenty of occasions that he's perfectly capable of controlling his impulses. I think part of it is that he simply enjoys killing people and has to consciously block that impulse to avoid going on a rampage, though--think a slightly more serious version of Belkar.

[Rakaydos]

Yeah, I really didn't like this whole bit with the orbital mirrors. Because, they're in orbit--presumably a geosynchronous orbit of Ganymede, so they can illuminate the same part of the surface at all times. Which means, even if you blow them to pieces, the wreckage stays in orbit--it does *not* come crashing down onto the station and smash everything up! Maybe the book explains better how that happened (not read it, wouldn't know), but the TV show just sort of presents it to you and hope you're not familiar enough with orbital mechanics to notice.

This seems to be a recurring problem with the physics- recall that once Phoebe was nuked, it "fell into the planet"

[Yora]

S2E9: The Weeeping Somnambulist

Martians are still on edge and searching Belter ships that are transporting relief supplies to Ganymede. They search the ship and finding nothing but want to confiscate the ship anyway. The captain has enough and attacks the Marine, who turns out to be Holden. And the Belters do recognize his face.

The Martian delegation goes to the negotiations on Earth and go down to UN headquarters in a drop ship. That's certainly sending a message. And they seem to have packed their armor and weapons as well. Drapper is given a whole load of meds to take while she's on Earth, and the officer also gives her her medal that she left behind in her cabin. She's told to wear it when she makes a statement to the security council.
She asks if he has seen the oceans on Earth before and what it was like, and he tells her it was dirty and stinking, so she shouldn't get her expectation up.

As soon as they land and get off their seats, everyone has trouble standing up. The officer tells them to not look up, because there's always drones filming them and they should try looking dignified as they are hobbling inside the building. Draper decides to leave her sunglasses in the ship.

Erinwright is coming to Chrisjen's office now for meetings, with her intelligence friend hanging around in the background.
Her friend on the science ship to Venus is making friends with the crew and annoying the officers. The colonel in charge thinks he's some pseudo-scientist chasing alien fantasies. Turns out the Martians are already at Venus.

Holden and Naomi apologize to the space truckers but they really need a ride to Ganymede without being detected. The one who had a fight with Holden does not believe them, but the other wants to know what they are planning and if they can help. Holden is insistent to not tell them what's going on.

New guy Meng is recording a message to the relatives of his friend on Mars, but says that she died in an accident on the ship from Ganymede. But his computer has been blocked from sending messages.
Amos wants him to help with something, but he says he will not do anything until he's told what all the secrecy is about.

At the meeting on Earth, the two admirals seem to have little interest in making a deal, but Chrisjen and the Martian ambassador are trying to keep things more conciliatory. Drappers statement is at the bottom of the schedule for the day, but still above "other business".

Meng tells Holden to tell him what's going on with the protomolecule stuff. Amos admits that he told him because he is helping them. Meng tells them his daughter has a genetic disease that she was getting treatment for by doctor Strickland.

Drapper goes to make her statement and does put on her medal. The Martians also brought her damaged armor (only her's) so the Earthers can examine it as evidence for her story.
She says that her patrol saw UNN marines coming towards them and shooting their weapons and all comms were being jammed. The Martian asks if the Earthers know anything about an exercise next to the border, but the Earther admiral says they lost all communications in that area as well. Draper says she ordered to open fire when the Earthers crossed the border on her own initiative.
The Martian delegation claims that the first shot was fired by the Earther serving in the unit. Chrisjen knows that Drapper didn't see it that way.

When she's back at her room, she's furious with her commander about putting the blame on of her soldiers who died. He tells her that's one of the sacrifices soldiers make to serve Mars.

Alex stays behind on the Rocinante to hide it on a nearby small moon, to come pick the others up in case they have to leave Ganymede quickly and can't sneak out on another freighter. But there's a very high risk of the Rocinante getting shot down when it comes to that.

The negotiations on Earth seem to be going quite well and everyone can agree on reparations that they can all live with. But before the Martians leave, Chrisjen wants to talk with Drapper again. She's being diplomatic, but makes it pretty certain that this is not a request. And the Martians don't look like they want to open up the whole negotiations again over this.
She starts with a conversation about the social situation on Earth and the Martian ambassador asks what the point of this is, and she tells him to shut up. Her point is that the parents of Draper's soldier went to Mars with him for a better life, and asks if there was any prejudice against him in the Martian marine corps. She then starts poking at the story of the Martians opening fire and Draper immediately starts talking about the Earthers firing first and there being someone else with them. The Martians interrupt and Chrisjen tells them to shut up. When she asks Draper to continue, she goes back to saying one of her men had opened fire. Chrisjen lets it stay at that.

The science ship at Venus detects an absolutely unbelievably big crater under the clouds, as well as the area being covered in biological material in an air that should burn anything.

The freighter crew tells Holden to get off their ship and don't try to mess with the local thugs that always come to take their share of the cargo. When they get off, they notice some shifty guys heading for the ship and go back, and try to save them from the gangsters. But in the shooting one of the pilots get killed and the other tells them to just go away.

--

Okay, the peace meeting on Earth were pretty neat. The space trucker stuff didn't do it for me, though.

Chrisjen is fun as always, but I had been expecting more from her talking with Sergeant Draper. Nice scene, of course, but not a lot much actual interaction.

After checking on some things again after watching the episode, I noticed the whole story the Martians claim about Ganymede incident is bogus. They say that the space battle started after there was fighting on the ground, but the Martian marines were watching the space battle from the ground well before they took any action. So it's not just the space zombie and the drone that are in doubt, but the whole story of the events is made up to suit diplomatic convenience.

The Martians arriving on Earth was pretty neat. Because all low-g scenes are filmed without gravity effects, its easy to forget that Ceres, Eros, and Martian ships have much lower g-forces than Earth according to the story. Making the walk from the dropship to the embassay building such a big deal for the Martians is a nice detail.
I was thinking that Martians would be used to much more intense sunlight with Mars having barely any atmosphere, but they would actually only ever see the sun through windows or helmets. And since on Mars every day is a perfect sunny day (unless there's a dust storm), it makes sense to always build them with at least some degree of sunshade as the default. And blank concrete on a sunny day can even be a bit much for regular people.

I feel there should be a lot more to say about this episode, but I can't really think of anything.

[factotum]

I was thinking that Martians would be used to much more intense sunlight with Mars having barely any atmosphere, but they would actually only ever see the sun through windows or helmets.

The critical thing there isn't the atmosphere, it's that Mars is a little over 50% further from the Sun than Earth is, so, the inverse square law being as it is, they get less than half the sunlight. This is why Ganymede had those orbital mirrors--at that distance from the Sun there's less than a twentieth of Earth normal sunlight, so they need to use massive mirrors to gather enough light for the plants to grow properly. I think the meds the guys took were things to boost their cardiovascular system, since pumping blood around the body would be a lot tougher than they're used to.

[Yora]

S2E10: Cascade

Meng takes Holden and crew to go looking for survivors from the hospital on Ganymede.

Chrisjen is the only one on Earth who think Bobby Draper isn't crazy and that the Martians are trying to cover something up. The Martians apparently just want to stick to their story for diplomatic reasons.

Bobby asks her boss if she can go to the beach before they send her back to Mars, and he tells her she can not. It's not healthy for Martians to be outside for long, but they really don't want her to say anything more to anyone on Earth.

Erinwright wants Bobby's armor to be completely examined for any traces of any unusual chemicals and has little patience for the analysts who tell him they already did the standard tests.

Nobody on Ganymede has seen Strickland, even though he is not listed as missing or dead. Naomi thinks the situation on Ganymede looks nothing like Eros, but Holden thinks it might just not have started yet. Meng discovers that something seems to have killed the soil bacteria in the greenhouse tables that still stand around shoved to the walls, which makes the plants look terrible.

Meng finds one of his colleagues who is also looking for his child. He says there's a guy on Ganymede who goes searching for missing people, but only takes canned chicken meat as payment. And apparently so far he has only provided pieces of security footage that shows people still being alive but never actually got anyone found. Which Amos think is a scam.

Erinwright comes to Chrisjen's office and she notices quickly that something important is on his mind. He comes clean that he thinks the incident at Ganymede was a weapons test done by Mao. He admits that he was cooperating with Mao on this weapons project but says the already knew that. She tells him that she also knows he had the ambassador murdered. Erinwright says he only helped cover it up. He then gives her all the information he has about the protomolecule research.

Bobby destroys all her cutlery to break open the window of her room, but then uses her medal to cut out the kitting and remove the glass from its frame. Climbing out a window is the weirdest thing for a Martian ever. She slips and falls but is ready to get up and run away.

Holden finds the man who says he can find people on Ganymede, and he's really only taking chicken meat as payment, despite already sitting on a big stash of it. Amos starts beating him up with one of the cans and Holden keeps Naomi back from stopping him. Meng is horrified by Amos. Amos then threatens him with a gun to make him cooperate.

Chrisjen gets news from her spymaster that the Martians seem to be in a bit of a panic looking for Bobby, who has disappeared from her room. She tells him to go find her first, and arrange for any Martians out in the city to run into police patrols that do completely checks of their papers.

Bobby is discovered in the slums by a guy who says he can take her to the water if she gives him her meds. He knows they don't give Earthers super strength, but he can trade it for other meds that that homeless desperately need. He's surprised by how quickly she agrees to share her meds and so he throws him free advice on improving her posture to walk normally on Earth.

Holden tells Naomi he would have stopped Amos before killing the guy, but Naomi replies that Holden is getting more ruthless every time he thinks something violent is necessary.
Meng tells Amos that he is an insane killer and Amos says he has not killed the guy yet. He says he knows guys like this who search for missing girls and where they end up with, and what happens to their children later.
They then go out while they are waiting for results, and Meng tells Amos something about the artificial ecosystem he was maintaining on Ganymede, and how it's very vulnerable to one thing failing and then everything else collapsing around it. Amos says Ganymede is too important to the outer system and Mars and Earth won't let it fail, but Meng thinks its already too far gone to prevent that. With the implication that the rest of the outer system will fall with it.

Bobby makes it to the water where Chrisjen is already waiting for her. She shows her a image of a space zombie that she got from Erinwright and claims that they were being released on Ganymede by the Martian government. Bobby doesn't believe her and she has to leave before the Martians officers arrive and see them together.

--

Love the Bobby Draper stuff. Wandering around on Earth in the slums without supervision makes for an interesting little adventure to watch. The social system on Earth seems really crappy, with even people who are registered not always getting meds they are supposed to be given. The sea at Manhattan looks pretty crappy, but I guess the water looks as bad like that in the present day already. But I like what they did with the framing of the shots to give the sky a good presence.
Obviously Bobby doesn't believe Chrisjen the first time she tells her everything is the fault of the Martian leadership, but she's already questioning too much. I predicted in the first episode with her that she's set up to drastically change her opinions ob both Martians and Earthers, and being right in the center of the UN with someone offering her information while her own people are constantly blocking her, I think defection is very much on the board now. But again, that final scene at the water felt a bit short and uneventful and not yet delivering really interesting interactions between Bobby and Chrisjen.

Amos and Meng are interesting together, with a lot of potential with great developments for the two of them. But otherwise that storyline doesn't really seem to have much traction right now.
Holden not wanting Naomi to stop Amos from beating up someone for information is also interesting. That's a very different behavior from when he threatened Amos to shot him if he tries to kill the people coming to board and arrest them.